"The Spaces Between Spaces"
May. 18th, 2022 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"The Space Between Spaces"
11/2/2014
I.
Haley's landings were improving. She and Timothy swooped down rapidly from the chill sky over northern Vermont, propelled by shrieking winds she had siphoned from a tornado a thousand miles away. They slowed to alight at the bottom of a rocky hillside. Neither stumbled. As the last of the winds faded, Haley Lawson threw back her heavy blue cloak and grinned in unbearably smug triumph. Not quite twenty, she had long chestnut-brown hair over a round face but her best feature was a gorgeous pair of bright green eyes. Today, she wore her Windcatcher costume of long-sleeved white pullover, snug blue trunks that left her legs bare and plain canvas sneakers with white ankle socks. Haley often felt tempted to add a super-hero emblem to the front of her shirt, a big blue W or a stylized tornado or something similar but so far had restrained herself.
Getting his footing next to her, Timothy Limbo tugged down his leather jacket and straightened its sleeves. "That wasn't half bad," he told her. "I could actually breathe the whole time." At five foot ten, he was only slightly taller than his teammate and only a few years older. Timothy's mop of butter-yellow hair hung down almost in his eyes. The biker boots, worn-out blue jeans and plain white T-shirt under the jacket were as much as his trademark outfit as was her more flamboyant clothing.
It wouldn't show to any observer, but these KDF members were wearing the silk-thin Trom armor under their clothes and both carried a dozen tiny weapons and gadgets. Timothy's gear was stowed in various pockets, while Haley wore a narrow leather belt with pouches. Even when not in the command-style field suits, they both were ready for the Midnight War to break out at any time. Haley's ability to summon air from anywhere on Earth and Timothy's small 'friendly ghost' observers were always ready to be used as well.
"Tim, just look at that place!" Haley said. "How could anyone live in a disaster like that?" She pointed to a huge gleaming dome located halfway up the slope. Constructed in a single unbroken piece, it was a semi-translucent blue, big enough to hold a regular two-story house. Enclosed walUngwerys from the dome connected a few smaller, more conventional storehouses and even a mundane bungalow with a chimney. The main structures seemed to be made of burnished aluminum and white enamel, shining bright and new in the fading sunlight. No one was in sight.
"It's wild, all right," he agreed. "But I read up on Dr Sinclair back at headquarters. He's supposed to be a record level genius with PhDs in a half dozen fields... applied biochemistry, mechanical engineering, linguistics, quantum physics and, uh, xenobiology. A few more I can't remember or pronounce in any case. I guess to him this place looks normal."
Haley snapped her fingers in a dismissive gesture. "If he's so smart, why doesn't he have a Nobel prize or two? Hah? I never heard of him."
"From what I remember, Sinclair argues and feuds with every scientist he meets. He's also been accused of swiping research and being a real jerk in general. That's why Sable was surprised to hear from him. He called our headquarters and asked for a few of us to come listen to a big announcement of some kind. Sable sent us ahead since she and Sheng had a meeting with the NYPD before they could leave. They're probably on their way now. In a real emergency, they can get the CORBY here in a minute."
"Humph. I suppose," she grumbled. "This place still looks goofy as hell to me. Do you see any kind of path up to that so-called house?"
"Not really. Funny, we didn't see any roads from the air, not even a trail for a dirtbike..." He froze in surprise as a device the size of a laptop buzzed through the air and hovered in front of them. It resembled a drone, but instead of fans at the four corners, brilliant blue-white bulbs blazed bright enough to be painful if stared at directly. A screen swung up which showed a vivid image of an old man's face.
"Welcome," came a voice as full and natural as if the person were standing right there with them. "Representatives of the Kenneth Dred Foundation, I take it? Please follow this messenger for a few feet."
"Well... okay," Haley said without enthusiasm. They walked behind the drone to where a panel of grass-covered material moved aside and revealed an escalator. They grinned at each other as they stepped aboard and were smoothly lifted up the hill to where a door slid open in the side of the dome for them.
Stepping inside, the two KDK members entered a confusing array of gleaming chrome and white tile, hundreds of mechanisms hooked up to each other in labyrinthine swerving connections. Various red and yellow lights blinked in complex patterns, gauges and digital readouts added to the visual overkill, and the floor beneath them hummed and vibrated as if some immensely powerful engine was running. It was impossible to take it all in at once. Haley and Timothy stood where they were, not daring to move for fear of bumping into something dangerous or fragile.
"Take a few minutes to adjust," said the voice from nearby. "I realize my workspace is a bit overwhelming if you're not used to it."
"No kidding," Haley said. "It's like trick photography or something. Dr Sinclair? Is that you?"
"Here I am." A bizarre figure moved around a counter toward them. Not more than five feet high, slightly built to the point of seeming fragile, he was an extremely old man wearing a breastplate, gauntlets and greaves of dark green plastic. From within the open visor of a green ovoid helmet peered a face as wrinkled as an apple dried in the sun. Yet he moved with confidence and precision. "Herbert Lewis Sinclair, at your service."
"Hi," Timothy returned. "Glad to meet you. Uhh, Dr Sinclair, I don't know if you're aware of what the KDF does? We mostly investigate and debunk sightings of the paranormal. I'm not sure your work really applies to us at all."
"All will be explained. Do not worry about staring like yokels, it doesn't trouble me. I am well over a hundred and twenty years old, children. I bear a synthetic heart of my own design. My nervous system has been enhanced by experimental proteins I developed. And I am facing you within the most sophisticated powered exoskeleton ever constructed. Despite my unimposing appearance, I can perform Olympic level feats."
Haley let a nervous laugh escape her. "Heh. How wonderful, but you know, Dr Sinclair, we don't have much time..."
"Forget that name!" snapped the old man in the gleaming armor. "For nine decades I have been known and feared as Cogitus. I know all about you, the famous knights of Tel Shai, agents of the Kenneth Dred Foundation. You dip your toes into the merest edge of the Unknown and think you are brave. Today you will confront that Unknown more directly and fearfully than you ever feared." He raised a gauntleted fist. "You will experience the spaces between spaces!"
II.
"Yeah," said Haley, "Wellll, I guess we should get going now. We'll send our friend Megan here to talk with you. She was raised by the Trom, she knows a lot more about science than Tim or I do."
Cogitus glowered at her with the exasperation of a crotchety teacher toward inattentive students. "Try to use your brains. You see that raised platform?"
"What, right there?" Timothy answered. "Sure. Big enough for two people to sing karaoke on. What about it?"
"That is the focal nexus for the topological rift!" yelled the old man.
"If you say so," Haley mumbled, taking a step backward but realizing that the door by which they had entered had been closed over with a panel and she had not the slightest idea how to locate it. "Uh-oh."
Cogitus raised his right gauntlet and began tapping at a tiny keypad built into its cuff. All over the lab, clicks and beeps and chirps echoed back and forth. "Let me make this so simple you can follow. It might help if you imagine Space itself as a balloon being inflated. To get from point A to point B, normally one would have to move across the surface of that balloon."
"Sure, right, of course," said Haley. "If you'd show us the door, we can let ourselves out...."
The air over the raised platform shimmered with a rippling haze, as if seen over a hot road in the summer. Cogitus continued, "But imagine how much quicker travel would be if we could simply take a short-cut THROUGH the balloon? A straight line between two points! You might step on my platform here and step out on a similar platform in New Zealand with less than a second passing."
Timothy placed a restraining hand on Haley's arm, since he thought she was about to throw a fit and start knocking things over. "Hang on, Hales," he said. "I'm interested. Let's see where this is heading."
"Many so-called physicists have refetted to this hypothetical region as 'Sub-space,'" Cogitus told them. "But in keeping with academic tradition, I propose it should in fairness be named after its discoverer. Behold, you are the first to witness an aperture into the Sinclair Zone."
Although she had taken a deep breath to begin yelling, Haley Lawson hesitated. The air above the platform was swirling and growing darker. A tang of ozone stung her nostrils. This was no optical illusion, she thought. Her hand crept up to close over the ancient Air Gem she wore under her collar, worrying that she and Timothy were in much greater danger than she had expected.
From within the open visor of his red helmet, Cogitus smirked at her discomfort. "Do you want to entertain a really unsettling thought? Something to disturb the placid little ponds you call your minds? What if the Sinclair Zone... or Sub-space... is not merely an empty void? It may be inhabited!"
As if his words were a cue to act, something weird the size of a cat scuttled out of the hazy area and pounced directly on top of Haley. It was insectoid, many-legged, with a shiny chitinous exterior. Knocked down, yelping in pain, she instantly summoned hurricane winds that flung the creature off her and slammed it against the far wall with a cracking noise.
Swerving on one heel and planting his weight, Timothy drove a simple straight punch directly into Cogitus' face. Years of Kumundu training gave his blow murderous impact. As the armored old man reeled bacward and tumbled over a low apparatus, Tim had lifted Haley with one arm around her middle and was moving toward where he remembered the door having been. He was working on instinct and had no idea what he would have done next but a panel slid upward at his approach and he raced outside, half carrying his teammate. Once they passed through, the door closed again behind them.
"I don't know if I can run," Haley admitted when they stumbled to the bottom of the slope. There was no sign of pursuit from Cogitus, not even one of his drones had appeared. They both stared in horror at her right leg, left bare by her Windcatcher shorts. On the outer thigh was a dark raised area that had red-purple streaks emanating from it. "I think I might need medical aid," she tried to say in a nonchalant manner. "Whatever bit or stung me, it really hurts."
Helping to support her as they made their way toward the woods, Timothy unclipped his Link from the back of his belt. "Sable? Yeah, we need you guys immediately. Haley's been hurt. Follow our signal." They made it to a wide clearing with a level surface before Haley insisted they stop.
"I have to sit. Geez, I'm getting scared," she said. "Look at that swelling. What WAS that thing that attacked me? I never saw anything like it."
"I don't think anyone has," Timothy told her. "Thanks a lot, Dr Sinclair." He held up his Link again and said, "Captain? Here's what happened...."
III.
Within a few minutes, a shadow fell over them. Tim and Haley looked up as the ominous sharklike shape of a black stealthcopter descended straight down twenty yards away from them. Even that close, the rotors were unnaturally quiet. No more noise than would be made from a stiff breeze could be heard. As soon as the landing gear unfolded and settled into the grass, both front hatches slid open with a hiss of pressurized air being released. Two people in the dark field suits leaped out to run crouching toward their waiting teammates.
The leader of their team, Sable was a dark-haired woman in her early thirties. Racing alongside her, Sheng Mo-Yuan carried one of the suitcase-sized medical kits. They crouched over where Haley was sitting up and trying to smile. Since Timothy had filled them in on the situation while they had headed there, Sable dropped to her knees, snapped on blue latex gloves and got to work immediately.
Lauren Sable Reilly's special ability involved perception. She could enhance her senses with a gralic boost so that she could hear a person's heartbeat speed up from across a room. She could detect increased adrenalin or endrophins by the scent of a person's perspiration and she could see the tiny mites living on human eyelashes. Sable stared at the raised discolored area on Haley's thigh and said, "Sheng, hold her steady. Haley, a local anesthetic doesn't work on us. Our accelerated healing from the Tagra tea makes our bodies discard anesthetics, so this is going to hurt."
"It already hurts," the Windcatcher whined. "Hurry up, captain, I'm counting on you."
When Sheng Mo-Yuan drew gralic force into his body, he could increase either his strength, speed or resilience to an superhuman extent. Now, as he held Windcatcher down with one arm across her shoulders and another around her waist, she could no more move than she could have gotten free from iron clamps.
Sable swabbed an alcohol solution over the affected area, then clicked open a drawer within the medical kit and drew out a large scalpel. Without the slightest hesitation, she made a deep incision, dropped the scalpel on the ground and pulled apart the edges of the opening to actually insert two fingers. She drew her hand up grasping a struggling grublike creature an inch long. It dripped blood and fluid.
"Oh good GOD!" screamed Haley. "That was inside my leg?!"
Reversing her glove to trap the creature, Sable wrapped her other glove around it as well, then dropped the bundle on the ground. "Sheng, would you get a specimen jar and secure that thing? Watch out, it's still active and it may try to bite through those gloves."
As the Chujiran got the wriggling bundle inside a glass jar and screwed on the metal lid, he said, "That's the nastiest thing I've seen in a long time. Good work, captain."
Having put on a fresh pair of gloves, Sable pressed together the edges of the wound on Haley's thigh and stuck adhesive butterfly bandages over the area. "You'll heal in about ten minutes," she told her teammate. "That's the upside of our Tagra healing. I don't perceive any toxins or debris left inside. We'll keep an eye out for infection of course."
"Oh, I feel a hundred per cent better already," Windcatcher said. "Thank you so much, Sable. I would rather have you take care of me in an emergency than an entire hospital staff."
To everyone's surprise, Sable rearranged herself from kneeling to a seated position on the grass, peeled off the latex gloves and hid her face in her hands. "Whew. Give me a minute, you guys. That was a tense moment. I could see where that grub was moving under the skin."
From where he had been holding Haley motionless, Timothy Limbo moved over and got on his knees facing his partners. "So, let me get that straight. That monster we saw in Sinclair's lab... it injected the little bug into Haley? Like laying an egg?"
"It seems so," Sable replied. She took a few more deep breaths and sat up straighter. "It must have a sort of ovipositor but instead of an egg, it inserts a living larva into its victim. Tim, Sheng, you're wearing the Trom armor under your clothes?"
"Absolutely," Sheng said and Tim nodded also.
"So am I," she said. "Haley, when you feel you can walk, you get right into the CORBY and put on your field suit. I know you love being cute and sassy in your Windcatcher costume but there's a reason we go into a case protected."
"No argument from me," Haley said. She got gingerly to her feet, put some weight on her injured leg and said, "I'm okay," before limping over to climb into the open hatch of the CORBY.
Glancing over at the specimen jar that Sheng was holding, Sable said, "It's stopped moving. But I think you should keep an eye on it. We'll let Megan examine it."
Although he looked like a typical Northern Chinese except for a beaked hawklike nose, Sheng Mo-Yuan was actually from the realm of Chujir. He placed the jar just out of reach and regarded it suspiciously. "I'm still processing the whole situation. Tim, from what you told us, this Cogitus character opened a gateway to, I don't know, another dimension or something? And released a dangerous giant bug?"
"You got it," Timothy said. "It all happened so fast, all I could think was to get Haley out of there and call you two to help. The last I saw, Dr Sinclair was on the floor from when I slugged him and the insectoid was stunned or dead."
"Obviously, we are going in there," Sable said. She retrieved the contaminated scalpel, wrapped it up in a linen and placed it in a storage area of the medical kit, along with the soiled gloves. "Dr Sinclair is better known as Cogitus in the Midnight War. He's a classic Mad Science threat ranking right up there with John Grim and Karl Eldritch. He hasn't been reported as active for the past decade or so. I had hoped he was dead, to be honest, he's so old."
Walking more steadily, Haley rejoined them. She was wearing one of the black field suits with its high boots, snug trousers and waist-length jacket. A dozen concealed pockets and pouches held miniature tools and weapons, and Haley was buckled a gunbelt around her narrow hips. She rarely carried one of the anesthetic dart guns but this situation was making her prudent. "My leg stings but it's getting better. I'm good to go, captain."
Sabler rose to her feet, picking up the medical kit and looking around to make sure she hadn't left anything behind. "Very good. Everyone on board. I think we need to have a few words with Cogitus."
IV.
Descending in front of the strange blue dome, the CORBY hovered barely a foot off the ground. In the pilot seat, Timothy punched a few buttons from the array of dozens before him. "Weapons pod down," he said. "Chain guns are ready, captain."
Next to him, Sable unfastened the restraint strap across her chest. "Good. If you see any of those insect-things making a run for it, cut them down."
"Don't worry, I'll nail them," he replied. "Talk about an invasive species. We need to scan the woods for a few miles around when this is done."
Ready to exit, Sable turned her head to the clear sliding partition between the cockpit and the compartment behind her. "You two ready?"
"You bet," said Sheng. He clapped one fist into his other open hand and grinned. "Let's go."
"I'm back to normal, I guess." Haley was wearing the field suit but she had kept the Air Gem on a band under her jacket collar. The ancient Melgar talisman was the source of her ability to summon air, whether scalding from above a volcano or frigid from an Arctic storm. She tapped the jewel for reassurance without realizing it. When Sable left the cockpit, she and Sheng slid open the rear hatch and hopped out to the ground. Haley felt a slight twinge in her injured leg, but not enough to mention. The Tagra tea regimen gave Tel Shai knights healing more rapid and thorough than medical science could explain.
Before the three of them could move away from the stealthcopter, one of the light-propelled drones whirred up toward them. The display screen swung up but remained dark.
"Get the door open," Sable ordered the device. "We're coming in."
A flat, monotone voice answered, "Go. Away. Go away."
"Cogitus? Dr Sinclair, is that you?" she asked.
"Go away," the voice repeated. "You. Are warned."
"Here's what I think of your warning!" shouted Sheng. He took two quick steps forward and vaulted up to seize the drone with bone hands, flipping it upside down. The device fell to the soil and he stomped down hard to crack its outer shell. A second stamp from his boot broke it open completely.
"Very dramatic," Haley remarked, "But that was how we were communicating."
The Chujiran shrugged. "That conversation was obviously going nowhere."
"You know all about that... no, scratch that. I'm sorry, Sheng. When I'm upset, I get a little caustic."
"We've gotten used to your charm," said Sable, marching toward the dome. "Timothy said there was a door that slid open when you got near it?"
"Yeppers. Of course, it may be locked now. I see where it was, give me a second." Windcatcher braced her feet well apart, lowered her head and concentrated. Using her power was by no means effortless, and it took both practice and determination to create her effects. She hit the wall with superheated air at 1100 degrees Fahrenheit from directly above an active volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, then immediately followed it with a blast of air from deep in Antarctica. That blast measured at minus 63 degrees. Instantly, deep cracks split the panel into fragments with a noise like fireworks and the interior of the lab was revealed.
"Hee hee, I love doing that," she smirked. But even as she spoke, five of the cat-sized insectlike creatures galloped through the opening toward them. The multiple legs scuttled furiously. In the split-second before the monsters would reach them, the KDF members caught a glimpse of waving wire-thin antennae and clashing mandibles. Then Haley struck instinctively, acting more out of panic than cool determination. She contacted a full-scale tornado moving through western Arkansas. Winds hitting two hundred and fifty miles per hour crashed into the beasts with a force that could uproot trees, throwing the insectoids back through the opening from which they had charged or slamming them into the dome so hard that their outer shells cracked open.
Sable started running toward the opening where the panel had been, with Sheng and Haley close behind her. Two of the creatures were injured but still alive, lying on their backs with their legs moving aimlessly. The three KDFD members glanced at the insectoids as they passed by. They resembled beetles as much as anything else, but the heads were shaped differently, with actual foreheads. At the base of the thorax, each had a vicious-looking whiplike appendage that ended in a barbed hook. That was probably the ovipositor that had wounded Haley, Sable thought.
Racing into the lab, expecting to be attacked by more of the creatures, Sable skidded to a halt. Cogitus was there to greet them, thin arms folded over his armored chest. But the gloating arrogance was gone from his face. He looked uneasy, even frightened. Next to him, nearly a foot taller, was a being that even in the gallery of Midnight War monstrosities stood out as grotesque. It seemed as much humanoid than insectlike, covered with a glossy black exoskeleton. Standing on thick legs and waving reasonably Human-sized upper arms, the creature's third pair of limbs showed as vestigial twigs halfway down the thorax. Instead of hands, the monster opened and closed crablike claws that were bifurcated. The head was a rounded variation of the smaller creatures', with a pair of waving wiry antennae and protruding bulbous eyes but instead of a single pair of mandibles, a sort of mouth was formed by rows of flaps.
"I will never say I've seen everything!" muttered Sheng Mo-Yuan. "When things get as weird as they can, it's always only the beginning."
The bugman's face emitted that uncanny emotionless voice they had heard from the drone outside. "I hope you understand. Can understand me. I am Ungwer, leader among my swarm. Behold, we have come to you. To your world, to make it ours."
V.
"Oh yeah?" shouted Haley, still worked up over her invasive wound by these creatures. "You'll have to go through us first!"
"Steady, steady," said Sable, stepping slightly in front of the Windcatcher. "Dr Sinclair, do you want to explain what's going on?"
Cogitus had lost so much of his usual caustic tone that his crestfallen voice was hard to hear. "I never thought I would say these words. In my pride and arrogance, I dared make contact with the Insectoids who inhabit Sub-space. I thought surely I could outwit and manipulate these beings, for was I not the greatest genius alive? Instead, I have been humbled. Ungwer has mastered me, instead."
"Aw, we've tackled everything from Trolls to Darthim to Skinwalkers!" Sheng Mo-Yuan retorted. "Exterminating a bunch of roaches won't take us too long."
The monster next to Cogitus made a disturbing gurgling noise that was evidently intended to be laughter. "You know nothing. You know not of our stings. We plant our young in your soft bodies. When big enough, they eat their way out, very proud moment."
"Yeah, I didn't appreciate that at all," said Haley. "I don't even plan on having kids the normal way."
"More," continued the horror. "There is more. While our young grow, the proteins they release make the host become pliant. Open to suggestion. Easy to command. Such as our friend here."
Seeing the horrified stares on the three KDF members, Cogitus lowered his head. "It's true. I taught some English to Ungwer, some knowledge of our world and its defenses. And in return, he infected me with a larva. My mind is weakened, I will do whatever Ungwer orders me to do."
"Kneel," rasped the single word from the humanoid creature, and Cogitus slowly and grudgingly did sink to his knees.
With his helmeted head bowed so his face could not be seen, the elderly mastermind mumbled, "I was powerless to defy Ungwer or to prevent the imminent infestation of his kind. But I knew of people who make it their crusade to stop such threats, people who have never backed down from such a threat yet."
Sable nodded. "That's why you phoned us. To save the day. That's one point in your favor, Dr Sinclair." She whipped up her airgun, loaded with the resonance caps and said, "It's over for you, Ungwer. Your bugs are not going to get a foothold in our world. Be happy with Sub-space, where you belong."
"Wrong. You are wrong." Ungwer swung sideways to reveal that the hazy area over the arrival platform had widened and grown more distinct. He clacked his claws together sharply, and a horde of the cat-sized insects tumbled out of the air... from the spaces between spaces. Forty of the creatures scurried through the lab and poured outside through the wrecked door panel in a dark torrent.
"Haley! Stop them!" ordered Sable. "It's up to you now."
"I'm on it," the youngest teammate snapped as she ran full tilt after the insectoids.
Before Sable could fire her weapon, Sheng had leaped at Ungwer in a flying tackle that brought them both crashing up against a metal cabinet which fell flat, leaving them on the white tile floor. The vicious ovipositor jabbed up at Sheng's abdomen, but was stopped short by the Trom armor beneath the Chujiran's field suit. Sheng had focused his gralic ability into increased strength. He smashed alternating left-right hooks that rocked the creature's head from side to side. Ungwer convulsed, flipped over and got up onto his feet. In doing so, he left himself open for a straight side kick that propelled him back to the platform. The chief of the Insectoids spun into the blurred area leading to Sub-space and was gone from sight instantly.
Sheng raised one fist in triumph. "Yeah! That's the kind of fight I like! Short and sweet!"
Off to one side, Cogitus had also risen to stand again. He stepped over to a console and gripped a large cylindrical lever with a red cap on its end, saying, "I will seal the aperture off. He will never return."
"Get Sinclair in there, too!" barked Sable and Sheng immediately complied, seizing Cogitus by an arm and an leg and hurling him into the haze. The mastermind wailed as he faded from sight, his cry cut off as he passed from this reality. Instantly, Sable threw the lever. The thrumming beneath the floor ceased, the lights in the lab brightened as the drain on the power supply ended.
"I, uh, I wasn't expecting that order, captain." Sheng exhaled sharply. "But you know, this is for the best."
"Sooner or later, he would have opened the portal again, and he would have let Ungwer back through. Or maybe something worse. Who knows what's running around in that space between spaces?" She gestured at the lab. "This needs to be destroyed. His notes, his equipment, all of it."
"We have some M-23 explosives in the CORBY," Sheng replied. "Come on, let's see what happened outside." They moved across the lab, feeling a wave of cold air as they reached the opening and step out to find the entire landscape covered with clear gleaming ice. Sub-zero winds still howled as they whirled and died out. The ground, trees and brush were all frozen completely solid and so were the rounded shells of the Insectoids who had been struck down in their flight.
"Cirkoth protect us," said Sheng in a low voice. "Sometimes I realize just how dangerous our little Haley is."
Seated on the ground with her knees drawn up, gasping for breath, Windcatcher turned her head but could not speak for a second. Sheng came over and squatted beside her, rubbing a comforting hand on her upper back.
"Take your time," he said. "You've been through a lot in the past hour. Breathe slowly and deeply, that's it."
"Whew," she managed at last. "I think that trick hit my limit. I must have brought a few square miles of air from the North Pole here in one jump. I thought it was going to kill me, to be honest."
Twenty yards away, the CORBY had landed and its rotors slowed to a stop. The entire helicopter was white with a layer of frost. As Timothy hopped down from the pilot hatch, the CORBY's windscreen was already starting to defrost. "I followed everything through my caspers," he called as he approached. "Good work, all of you. These vermin are all dead chunks of ice. That Ungwer and Dr Sinclair are back in the Sub-space whatever it is Zone and they won't be coming back."
"If we can help it, no one will ever know how close our world came to being overrun by a monstrous species like that." Sable looked back at the dome. "Maybe we should let Megan see if there's anything there she could salvage before we destroy it."
Sheng extended a hand to Haley, and she accepted his assistance getting up. "Poor old Cogitus," he chuckled. "Giving birth at his age! And to a larva that delivers itself by chewing its way free. What a nightmare."
"It's what was going to happen to me!" yelled Haley right in his face. "There can't be a worse way to violate a person's body. I don't feel sorry for him one bit!"
8/3/2019
11/2/2014
I.
Haley's landings were improving. She and Timothy swooped down rapidly from the chill sky over northern Vermont, propelled by shrieking winds she had siphoned from a tornado a thousand miles away. They slowed to alight at the bottom of a rocky hillside. Neither stumbled. As the last of the winds faded, Haley Lawson threw back her heavy blue cloak and grinned in unbearably smug triumph. Not quite twenty, she had long chestnut-brown hair over a round face but her best feature was a gorgeous pair of bright green eyes. Today, she wore her Windcatcher costume of long-sleeved white pullover, snug blue trunks that left her legs bare and plain canvas sneakers with white ankle socks. Haley often felt tempted to add a super-hero emblem to the front of her shirt, a big blue W or a stylized tornado or something similar but so far had restrained herself.
Getting his footing next to her, Timothy Limbo tugged down his leather jacket and straightened its sleeves. "That wasn't half bad," he told her. "I could actually breathe the whole time." At five foot ten, he was only slightly taller than his teammate and only a few years older. Timothy's mop of butter-yellow hair hung down almost in his eyes. The biker boots, worn-out blue jeans and plain white T-shirt under the jacket were as much as his trademark outfit as was her more flamboyant clothing.
It wouldn't show to any observer, but these KDF members were wearing the silk-thin Trom armor under their clothes and both carried a dozen tiny weapons and gadgets. Timothy's gear was stowed in various pockets, while Haley wore a narrow leather belt with pouches. Even when not in the command-style field suits, they both were ready for the Midnight War to break out at any time. Haley's ability to summon air from anywhere on Earth and Timothy's small 'friendly ghost' observers were always ready to be used as well.
"Tim, just look at that place!" Haley said. "How could anyone live in a disaster like that?" She pointed to a huge gleaming dome located halfway up the slope. Constructed in a single unbroken piece, it was a semi-translucent blue, big enough to hold a regular two-story house. Enclosed walUngwerys from the dome connected a few smaller, more conventional storehouses and even a mundane bungalow with a chimney. The main structures seemed to be made of burnished aluminum and white enamel, shining bright and new in the fading sunlight. No one was in sight.
"It's wild, all right," he agreed. "But I read up on Dr Sinclair back at headquarters. He's supposed to be a record level genius with PhDs in a half dozen fields... applied biochemistry, mechanical engineering, linguistics, quantum physics and, uh, xenobiology. A few more I can't remember or pronounce in any case. I guess to him this place looks normal."
Haley snapped her fingers in a dismissive gesture. "If he's so smart, why doesn't he have a Nobel prize or two? Hah? I never heard of him."
"From what I remember, Sinclair argues and feuds with every scientist he meets. He's also been accused of swiping research and being a real jerk in general. That's why Sable was surprised to hear from him. He called our headquarters and asked for a few of us to come listen to a big announcement of some kind. Sable sent us ahead since she and Sheng had a meeting with the NYPD before they could leave. They're probably on their way now. In a real emergency, they can get the CORBY here in a minute."
"Humph. I suppose," she grumbled. "This place still looks goofy as hell to me. Do you see any kind of path up to that so-called house?"
"Not really. Funny, we didn't see any roads from the air, not even a trail for a dirtbike..." He froze in surprise as a device the size of a laptop buzzed through the air and hovered in front of them. It resembled a drone, but instead of fans at the four corners, brilliant blue-white bulbs blazed bright enough to be painful if stared at directly. A screen swung up which showed a vivid image of an old man's face.
"Welcome," came a voice as full and natural as if the person were standing right there with them. "Representatives of the Kenneth Dred Foundation, I take it? Please follow this messenger for a few feet."
"Well... okay," Haley said without enthusiasm. They walked behind the drone to where a panel of grass-covered material moved aside and revealed an escalator. They grinned at each other as they stepped aboard and were smoothly lifted up the hill to where a door slid open in the side of the dome for them.
Stepping inside, the two KDK members entered a confusing array of gleaming chrome and white tile, hundreds of mechanisms hooked up to each other in labyrinthine swerving connections. Various red and yellow lights blinked in complex patterns, gauges and digital readouts added to the visual overkill, and the floor beneath them hummed and vibrated as if some immensely powerful engine was running. It was impossible to take it all in at once. Haley and Timothy stood where they were, not daring to move for fear of bumping into something dangerous or fragile.
"Take a few minutes to adjust," said the voice from nearby. "I realize my workspace is a bit overwhelming if you're not used to it."
"No kidding," Haley said. "It's like trick photography or something. Dr Sinclair? Is that you?"
"Here I am." A bizarre figure moved around a counter toward them. Not more than five feet high, slightly built to the point of seeming fragile, he was an extremely old man wearing a breastplate, gauntlets and greaves of dark green plastic. From within the open visor of a green ovoid helmet peered a face as wrinkled as an apple dried in the sun. Yet he moved with confidence and precision. "Herbert Lewis Sinclair, at your service."
"Hi," Timothy returned. "Glad to meet you. Uhh, Dr Sinclair, I don't know if you're aware of what the KDF does? We mostly investigate and debunk sightings of the paranormal. I'm not sure your work really applies to us at all."
"All will be explained. Do not worry about staring like yokels, it doesn't trouble me. I am well over a hundred and twenty years old, children. I bear a synthetic heart of my own design. My nervous system has been enhanced by experimental proteins I developed. And I am facing you within the most sophisticated powered exoskeleton ever constructed. Despite my unimposing appearance, I can perform Olympic level feats."
Haley let a nervous laugh escape her. "Heh. How wonderful, but you know, Dr Sinclair, we don't have much time..."
"Forget that name!" snapped the old man in the gleaming armor. "For nine decades I have been known and feared as Cogitus. I know all about you, the famous knights of Tel Shai, agents of the Kenneth Dred Foundation. You dip your toes into the merest edge of the Unknown and think you are brave. Today you will confront that Unknown more directly and fearfully than you ever feared." He raised a gauntleted fist. "You will experience the spaces between spaces!"
II.
"Yeah," said Haley, "Wellll, I guess we should get going now. We'll send our friend Megan here to talk with you. She was raised by the Trom, she knows a lot more about science than Tim or I do."
Cogitus glowered at her with the exasperation of a crotchety teacher toward inattentive students. "Try to use your brains. You see that raised platform?"
"What, right there?" Timothy answered. "Sure. Big enough for two people to sing karaoke on. What about it?"
"That is the focal nexus for the topological rift!" yelled the old man.
"If you say so," Haley mumbled, taking a step backward but realizing that the door by which they had entered had been closed over with a panel and she had not the slightest idea how to locate it. "Uh-oh."
Cogitus raised his right gauntlet and began tapping at a tiny keypad built into its cuff. All over the lab, clicks and beeps and chirps echoed back and forth. "Let me make this so simple you can follow. It might help if you imagine Space itself as a balloon being inflated. To get from point A to point B, normally one would have to move across the surface of that balloon."
"Sure, right, of course," said Haley. "If you'd show us the door, we can let ourselves out...."
The air over the raised platform shimmered with a rippling haze, as if seen over a hot road in the summer. Cogitus continued, "But imagine how much quicker travel would be if we could simply take a short-cut THROUGH the balloon? A straight line between two points! You might step on my platform here and step out on a similar platform in New Zealand with less than a second passing."
Timothy placed a restraining hand on Haley's arm, since he thought she was about to throw a fit and start knocking things over. "Hang on, Hales," he said. "I'm interested. Let's see where this is heading."
"Many so-called physicists have refetted to this hypothetical region as 'Sub-space,'" Cogitus told them. "But in keeping with academic tradition, I propose it should in fairness be named after its discoverer. Behold, you are the first to witness an aperture into the Sinclair Zone."
Although she had taken a deep breath to begin yelling, Haley Lawson hesitated. The air above the platform was swirling and growing darker. A tang of ozone stung her nostrils. This was no optical illusion, she thought. Her hand crept up to close over the ancient Air Gem she wore under her collar, worrying that she and Timothy were in much greater danger than she had expected.
From within the open visor of his red helmet, Cogitus smirked at her discomfort. "Do you want to entertain a really unsettling thought? Something to disturb the placid little ponds you call your minds? What if the Sinclair Zone... or Sub-space... is not merely an empty void? It may be inhabited!"
As if his words were a cue to act, something weird the size of a cat scuttled out of the hazy area and pounced directly on top of Haley. It was insectoid, many-legged, with a shiny chitinous exterior. Knocked down, yelping in pain, she instantly summoned hurricane winds that flung the creature off her and slammed it against the far wall with a cracking noise.
Swerving on one heel and planting his weight, Timothy drove a simple straight punch directly into Cogitus' face. Years of Kumundu training gave his blow murderous impact. As the armored old man reeled bacward and tumbled over a low apparatus, Tim had lifted Haley with one arm around her middle and was moving toward where he remembered the door having been. He was working on instinct and had no idea what he would have done next but a panel slid upward at his approach and he raced outside, half carrying his teammate. Once they passed through, the door closed again behind them.
"I don't know if I can run," Haley admitted when they stumbled to the bottom of the slope. There was no sign of pursuit from Cogitus, not even one of his drones had appeared. They both stared in horror at her right leg, left bare by her Windcatcher shorts. On the outer thigh was a dark raised area that had red-purple streaks emanating from it. "I think I might need medical aid," she tried to say in a nonchalant manner. "Whatever bit or stung me, it really hurts."
Helping to support her as they made their way toward the woods, Timothy unclipped his Link from the back of his belt. "Sable? Yeah, we need you guys immediately. Haley's been hurt. Follow our signal." They made it to a wide clearing with a level surface before Haley insisted they stop.
"I have to sit. Geez, I'm getting scared," she said. "Look at that swelling. What WAS that thing that attacked me? I never saw anything like it."
"I don't think anyone has," Timothy told her. "Thanks a lot, Dr Sinclair." He held up his Link again and said, "Captain? Here's what happened...."
III.
Within a few minutes, a shadow fell over them. Tim and Haley looked up as the ominous sharklike shape of a black stealthcopter descended straight down twenty yards away from them. Even that close, the rotors were unnaturally quiet. No more noise than would be made from a stiff breeze could be heard. As soon as the landing gear unfolded and settled into the grass, both front hatches slid open with a hiss of pressurized air being released. Two people in the dark field suits leaped out to run crouching toward their waiting teammates.
The leader of their team, Sable was a dark-haired woman in her early thirties. Racing alongside her, Sheng Mo-Yuan carried one of the suitcase-sized medical kits. They crouched over where Haley was sitting up and trying to smile. Since Timothy had filled them in on the situation while they had headed there, Sable dropped to her knees, snapped on blue latex gloves and got to work immediately.
Lauren Sable Reilly's special ability involved perception. She could enhance her senses with a gralic boost so that she could hear a person's heartbeat speed up from across a room. She could detect increased adrenalin or endrophins by the scent of a person's perspiration and she could see the tiny mites living on human eyelashes. Sable stared at the raised discolored area on Haley's thigh and said, "Sheng, hold her steady. Haley, a local anesthetic doesn't work on us. Our accelerated healing from the Tagra tea makes our bodies discard anesthetics, so this is going to hurt."
"It already hurts," the Windcatcher whined. "Hurry up, captain, I'm counting on you."
When Sheng Mo-Yuan drew gralic force into his body, he could increase either his strength, speed or resilience to an superhuman extent. Now, as he held Windcatcher down with one arm across her shoulders and another around her waist, she could no more move than she could have gotten free from iron clamps.
Sable swabbed an alcohol solution over the affected area, then clicked open a drawer within the medical kit and drew out a large scalpel. Without the slightest hesitation, she made a deep incision, dropped the scalpel on the ground and pulled apart the edges of the opening to actually insert two fingers. She drew her hand up grasping a struggling grublike creature an inch long. It dripped blood and fluid.
"Oh good GOD!" screamed Haley. "That was inside my leg?!"
Reversing her glove to trap the creature, Sable wrapped her other glove around it as well, then dropped the bundle on the ground. "Sheng, would you get a specimen jar and secure that thing? Watch out, it's still active and it may try to bite through those gloves."
As the Chujiran got the wriggling bundle inside a glass jar and screwed on the metal lid, he said, "That's the nastiest thing I've seen in a long time. Good work, captain."
Having put on a fresh pair of gloves, Sable pressed together the edges of the wound on Haley's thigh and stuck adhesive butterfly bandages over the area. "You'll heal in about ten minutes," she told her teammate. "That's the upside of our Tagra healing. I don't perceive any toxins or debris left inside. We'll keep an eye out for infection of course."
"Oh, I feel a hundred per cent better already," Windcatcher said. "Thank you so much, Sable. I would rather have you take care of me in an emergency than an entire hospital staff."
To everyone's surprise, Sable rearranged herself from kneeling to a seated position on the grass, peeled off the latex gloves and hid her face in her hands. "Whew. Give me a minute, you guys. That was a tense moment. I could see where that grub was moving under the skin."
From where he had been holding Haley motionless, Timothy Limbo moved over and got on his knees facing his partners. "So, let me get that straight. That monster we saw in Sinclair's lab... it injected the little bug into Haley? Like laying an egg?"
"It seems so," Sable replied. She took a few more deep breaths and sat up straighter. "It must have a sort of ovipositor but instead of an egg, it inserts a living larva into its victim. Tim, Sheng, you're wearing the Trom armor under your clothes?"
"Absolutely," Sheng said and Tim nodded also.
"So am I," she said. "Haley, when you feel you can walk, you get right into the CORBY and put on your field suit. I know you love being cute and sassy in your Windcatcher costume but there's a reason we go into a case protected."
"No argument from me," Haley said. She got gingerly to her feet, put some weight on her injured leg and said, "I'm okay," before limping over to climb into the open hatch of the CORBY.
Glancing over at the specimen jar that Sheng was holding, Sable said, "It's stopped moving. But I think you should keep an eye on it. We'll let Megan examine it."
Although he looked like a typical Northern Chinese except for a beaked hawklike nose, Sheng Mo-Yuan was actually from the realm of Chujir. He placed the jar just out of reach and regarded it suspiciously. "I'm still processing the whole situation. Tim, from what you told us, this Cogitus character opened a gateway to, I don't know, another dimension or something? And released a dangerous giant bug?"
"You got it," Timothy said. "It all happened so fast, all I could think was to get Haley out of there and call you two to help. The last I saw, Dr Sinclair was on the floor from when I slugged him and the insectoid was stunned or dead."
"Obviously, we are going in there," Sable said. She retrieved the contaminated scalpel, wrapped it up in a linen and placed it in a storage area of the medical kit, along with the soiled gloves. "Dr Sinclair is better known as Cogitus in the Midnight War. He's a classic Mad Science threat ranking right up there with John Grim and Karl Eldritch. He hasn't been reported as active for the past decade or so. I had hoped he was dead, to be honest, he's so old."
Walking more steadily, Haley rejoined them. She was wearing one of the black field suits with its high boots, snug trousers and waist-length jacket. A dozen concealed pockets and pouches held miniature tools and weapons, and Haley was buckled a gunbelt around her narrow hips. She rarely carried one of the anesthetic dart guns but this situation was making her prudent. "My leg stings but it's getting better. I'm good to go, captain."
Sabler rose to her feet, picking up the medical kit and looking around to make sure she hadn't left anything behind. "Very good. Everyone on board. I think we need to have a few words with Cogitus."
IV.
Descending in front of the strange blue dome, the CORBY hovered barely a foot off the ground. In the pilot seat, Timothy punched a few buttons from the array of dozens before him. "Weapons pod down," he said. "Chain guns are ready, captain."
Next to him, Sable unfastened the restraint strap across her chest. "Good. If you see any of those insect-things making a run for it, cut them down."
"Don't worry, I'll nail them," he replied. "Talk about an invasive species. We need to scan the woods for a few miles around when this is done."
Ready to exit, Sable turned her head to the clear sliding partition between the cockpit and the compartment behind her. "You two ready?"
"You bet," said Sheng. He clapped one fist into his other open hand and grinned. "Let's go."
"I'm back to normal, I guess." Haley was wearing the field suit but she had kept the Air Gem on a band under her jacket collar. The ancient Melgar talisman was the source of her ability to summon air, whether scalding from above a volcano or frigid from an Arctic storm. She tapped the jewel for reassurance without realizing it. When Sable left the cockpit, she and Sheng slid open the rear hatch and hopped out to the ground. Haley felt a slight twinge in her injured leg, but not enough to mention. The Tagra tea regimen gave Tel Shai knights healing more rapid and thorough than medical science could explain.
Before the three of them could move away from the stealthcopter, one of the light-propelled drones whirred up toward them. The display screen swung up but remained dark.
"Get the door open," Sable ordered the device. "We're coming in."
A flat, monotone voice answered, "Go. Away. Go away."
"Cogitus? Dr Sinclair, is that you?" she asked.
"Go away," the voice repeated. "You. Are warned."
"Here's what I think of your warning!" shouted Sheng. He took two quick steps forward and vaulted up to seize the drone with bone hands, flipping it upside down. The device fell to the soil and he stomped down hard to crack its outer shell. A second stamp from his boot broke it open completely.
"Very dramatic," Haley remarked, "But that was how we were communicating."
The Chujiran shrugged. "That conversation was obviously going nowhere."
"You know all about that... no, scratch that. I'm sorry, Sheng. When I'm upset, I get a little caustic."
"We've gotten used to your charm," said Sable, marching toward the dome. "Timothy said there was a door that slid open when you got near it?"
"Yeppers. Of course, it may be locked now. I see where it was, give me a second." Windcatcher braced her feet well apart, lowered her head and concentrated. Using her power was by no means effortless, and it took both practice and determination to create her effects. She hit the wall with superheated air at 1100 degrees Fahrenheit from directly above an active volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, then immediately followed it with a blast of air from deep in Antarctica. That blast measured at minus 63 degrees. Instantly, deep cracks split the panel into fragments with a noise like fireworks and the interior of the lab was revealed.
"Hee hee, I love doing that," she smirked. But even as she spoke, five of the cat-sized insectlike creatures galloped through the opening toward them. The multiple legs scuttled furiously. In the split-second before the monsters would reach them, the KDF members caught a glimpse of waving wire-thin antennae and clashing mandibles. Then Haley struck instinctively, acting more out of panic than cool determination. She contacted a full-scale tornado moving through western Arkansas. Winds hitting two hundred and fifty miles per hour crashed into the beasts with a force that could uproot trees, throwing the insectoids back through the opening from which they had charged or slamming them into the dome so hard that their outer shells cracked open.
Sable started running toward the opening where the panel had been, with Sheng and Haley close behind her. Two of the creatures were injured but still alive, lying on their backs with their legs moving aimlessly. The three KDFD members glanced at the insectoids as they passed by. They resembled beetles as much as anything else, but the heads were shaped differently, with actual foreheads. At the base of the thorax, each had a vicious-looking whiplike appendage that ended in a barbed hook. That was probably the ovipositor that had wounded Haley, Sable thought.
Racing into the lab, expecting to be attacked by more of the creatures, Sable skidded to a halt. Cogitus was there to greet them, thin arms folded over his armored chest. But the gloating arrogance was gone from his face. He looked uneasy, even frightened. Next to him, nearly a foot taller, was a being that even in the gallery of Midnight War monstrosities stood out as grotesque. It seemed as much humanoid than insectlike, covered with a glossy black exoskeleton. Standing on thick legs and waving reasonably Human-sized upper arms, the creature's third pair of limbs showed as vestigial twigs halfway down the thorax. Instead of hands, the monster opened and closed crablike claws that were bifurcated. The head was a rounded variation of the smaller creatures', with a pair of waving wiry antennae and protruding bulbous eyes but instead of a single pair of mandibles, a sort of mouth was formed by rows of flaps.
"I will never say I've seen everything!" muttered Sheng Mo-Yuan. "When things get as weird as they can, it's always only the beginning."
The bugman's face emitted that uncanny emotionless voice they had heard from the drone outside. "I hope you understand. Can understand me. I am Ungwer, leader among my swarm. Behold, we have come to you. To your world, to make it ours."
V.
"Oh yeah?" shouted Haley, still worked up over her invasive wound by these creatures. "You'll have to go through us first!"
"Steady, steady," said Sable, stepping slightly in front of the Windcatcher. "Dr Sinclair, do you want to explain what's going on?"
Cogitus had lost so much of his usual caustic tone that his crestfallen voice was hard to hear. "I never thought I would say these words. In my pride and arrogance, I dared make contact with the Insectoids who inhabit Sub-space. I thought surely I could outwit and manipulate these beings, for was I not the greatest genius alive? Instead, I have been humbled. Ungwer has mastered me, instead."
"Aw, we've tackled everything from Trolls to Darthim to Skinwalkers!" Sheng Mo-Yuan retorted. "Exterminating a bunch of roaches won't take us too long."
The monster next to Cogitus made a disturbing gurgling noise that was evidently intended to be laughter. "You know nothing. You know not of our stings. We plant our young in your soft bodies. When big enough, they eat their way out, very proud moment."
"Yeah, I didn't appreciate that at all," said Haley. "I don't even plan on having kids the normal way."
"More," continued the horror. "There is more. While our young grow, the proteins they release make the host become pliant. Open to suggestion. Easy to command. Such as our friend here."
Seeing the horrified stares on the three KDF members, Cogitus lowered his head. "It's true. I taught some English to Ungwer, some knowledge of our world and its defenses. And in return, he infected me with a larva. My mind is weakened, I will do whatever Ungwer orders me to do."
"Kneel," rasped the single word from the humanoid creature, and Cogitus slowly and grudgingly did sink to his knees.
With his helmeted head bowed so his face could not be seen, the elderly mastermind mumbled, "I was powerless to defy Ungwer or to prevent the imminent infestation of his kind. But I knew of people who make it their crusade to stop such threats, people who have never backed down from such a threat yet."
Sable nodded. "That's why you phoned us. To save the day. That's one point in your favor, Dr Sinclair." She whipped up her airgun, loaded with the resonance caps and said, "It's over for you, Ungwer. Your bugs are not going to get a foothold in our world. Be happy with Sub-space, where you belong."
"Wrong. You are wrong." Ungwer swung sideways to reveal that the hazy area over the arrival platform had widened and grown more distinct. He clacked his claws together sharply, and a horde of the cat-sized insects tumbled out of the air... from the spaces between spaces. Forty of the creatures scurried through the lab and poured outside through the wrecked door panel in a dark torrent.
"Haley! Stop them!" ordered Sable. "It's up to you now."
"I'm on it," the youngest teammate snapped as she ran full tilt after the insectoids.
Before Sable could fire her weapon, Sheng had leaped at Ungwer in a flying tackle that brought them both crashing up against a metal cabinet which fell flat, leaving them on the white tile floor. The vicious ovipositor jabbed up at Sheng's abdomen, but was stopped short by the Trom armor beneath the Chujiran's field suit. Sheng had focused his gralic ability into increased strength. He smashed alternating left-right hooks that rocked the creature's head from side to side. Ungwer convulsed, flipped over and got up onto his feet. In doing so, he left himself open for a straight side kick that propelled him back to the platform. The chief of the Insectoids spun into the blurred area leading to Sub-space and was gone from sight instantly.
Sheng raised one fist in triumph. "Yeah! That's the kind of fight I like! Short and sweet!"
Off to one side, Cogitus had also risen to stand again. He stepped over to a console and gripped a large cylindrical lever with a red cap on its end, saying, "I will seal the aperture off. He will never return."
"Get Sinclair in there, too!" barked Sable and Sheng immediately complied, seizing Cogitus by an arm and an leg and hurling him into the haze. The mastermind wailed as he faded from sight, his cry cut off as he passed from this reality. Instantly, Sable threw the lever. The thrumming beneath the floor ceased, the lights in the lab brightened as the drain on the power supply ended.
"I, uh, I wasn't expecting that order, captain." Sheng exhaled sharply. "But you know, this is for the best."
"Sooner or later, he would have opened the portal again, and he would have let Ungwer back through. Or maybe something worse. Who knows what's running around in that space between spaces?" She gestured at the lab. "This needs to be destroyed. His notes, his equipment, all of it."
"We have some M-23 explosives in the CORBY," Sheng replied. "Come on, let's see what happened outside." They moved across the lab, feeling a wave of cold air as they reached the opening and step out to find the entire landscape covered with clear gleaming ice. Sub-zero winds still howled as they whirled and died out. The ground, trees and brush were all frozen completely solid and so were the rounded shells of the Insectoids who had been struck down in their flight.
"Cirkoth protect us," said Sheng in a low voice. "Sometimes I realize just how dangerous our little Haley is."
Seated on the ground with her knees drawn up, gasping for breath, Windcatcher turned her head but could not speak for a second. Sheng came over and squatted beside her, rubbing a comforting hand on her upper back.
"Take your time," he said. "You've been through a lot in the past hour. Breathe slowly and deeply, that's it."
"Whew," she managed at last. "I think that trick hit my limit. I must have brought a few square miles of air from the North Pole here in one jump. I thought it was going to kill me, to be honest."
Twenty yards away, the CORBY had landed and its rotors slowed to a stop. The entire helicopter was white with a layer of frost. As Timothy hopped down from the pilot hatch, the CORBY's windscreen was already starting to defrost. "I followed everything through my caspers," he called as he approached. "Good work, all of you. These vermin are all dead chunks of ice. That Ungwer and Dr Sinclair are back in the Sub-space whatever it is Zone and they won't be coming back."
"If we can help it, no one will ever know how close our world came to being overrun by a monstrous species like that." Sable looked back at the dome. "Maybe we should let Megan see if there's anything there she could salvage before we destroy it."
Sheng extended a hand to Haley, and she accepted his assistance getting up. "Poor old Cogitus," he chuckled. "Giving birth at his age! And to a larva that delivers itself by chewing its way free. What a nightmare."
"It's what was going to happen to me!" yelled Haley right in his face. "There can't be a worse way to violate a person's body. I don't feel sorry for him one bit!"
8/3/2019
no subject
Date: 2025-02-08 03:01 am (UTC)